I'm Still Here... House Update and Vacation Highlights

Hi everyone!  Wow, has it been a wild ride!  We moved in to our new house on July 11th, also Ava's 7th birthday!  We had just two days to unpack before making our trip to San Francisco, celebrating my cousin getting married!  We enjoyed five days there, trying to cram in as much as we could!  

We went to Roaring Camp in Felton, CA and rode up to Bear Mountain in an old steam train. 

The kids loved it, especially Tyler!  

We experienced The Mystery Spot, a weird place up in the California Redwoods that will mess with your head and your stomach!

Walked the beach in Santa Cruz and rode rides at the 

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk & Amusement Park...

Took the kids to the Steinhart Aquarium at the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco...

Drove over the Golden Gate Bridge on a beautiful California day!

We did ALOT of sightseeing while we were there.
Here is a roadside view of the ocean in Half Moon Bay, I was not expecting it to be so chilly there!
100 degree weather in Arkansas... 50's and 60's in CA!

I turned around and had this view...  Just breathtaking!  

On our last night there, we enjoyed dinner with family in Mill Valley.  It was fun catching up and talking about the beautiful wedding, Congratulations to Danielle and Michael!  

It was one of the most elegant weddings I've ever been to!  

So now that we're home from our much needed vacation... let me just say... much progress has been made!    A part of me was glad to be home, after all, it's fun to "play house," especially when it's a new one!  All of the boxes are emptied, broken down and almost everything is in it's place... for now.  I've been shuffling things around quite a bit, which is the fun part, right?  Finding just the right place for everything.  I have more storage than I know what to do with.  There are several cabinets that are still empty, give it time, they'll be full before I know it!

As far as a new email address goes, this blog is still linked to my old one in Texas.  I'm currently working on getting things updated, so if I don't get to your message, I'm not ignoring you!  For those of you that have had to make updates due to a move, any advice for making those changes would be much appreciated!

Hope all is well with everyone!  I've missed you and have a lot of catching up to do here in blogland!

PLEASE NOTE:
Pictures are courtesy of the locations website:
Roaring Camp Railroads
Steinhart Aquarium
The Mystery Spot
Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk & Amusement Park  

Ch-Ch-Changes! We're Moving!

Hi everyone!  Thanks for checking up on me.  I didn't expect to be away for so long!
To say things have been crazy around here would be a HUGE understatement!  

In mid April, we began praying about making changes for our family.  After much thought and prayer, we have decided to move to Central Arkansas.  Hubby works from home, so we are blessed to live anywhere, really.  We had a few things to fix up before listing... stain the fence, stretch the carpets, get them cleaned, just to name a few.  Once all of that was taken care of, we were able to put our house on the market in early May.  We had several showings and were pleased with the activity the house was receiving.
On Day 12 of being on the market, we received an offer!
Whoa!  We were not expecting this to happen so quickly!  God is good!

SOLD!!!
It's been exciting to look for a new home and often frustrating too.  We've missed out on a few that we really loved, but we now know that was Gods way of telling us to be patient.  On our third trip to Arkansas, we found one last weekend that fits our family perfectly!  It is actually one we saw on our first trip to view homes.  We decided to add it to the list one more time, there was just something about it.
After spending a total of 2.5 hours (over the course of the weekend) looking at all the details, we put an offer in and it was accepted a few hours later!  Thank you, Jesus!  

The front of it reminds us of our TX home.  

One of my favorite features about this house... the laundry room is UPSTAIRS!!!  

I am SO excited about this, as I despise laundry, especially toting it up and down the stairs!  

Another favorite feature (there are several) is my long awaited WHITE kitchen!

If you've been following me for a while, you know that I've been "dreaming" of a white kitchen for some time now.  Hubby and I had plans of transforming ours in TX, but God had other ideas!

The house has TONS of built-ins, so I can't wait to organize and accessorize!

SURPRISE!  This explains my long absence.  I'll be absent a bit longer as we purge, pack and press on to our new home.  We hope to be moved in by early July.  What about you?  Do you have changes going on in your family?  Please share!  I'd love to hear what you've been up to!  

Hope you're having a great summer!

Joining the party at:

Feathered Nest Friday @ French Country Cottage

Have You Been Expedited?

The New Year seems to always bring feelings of organizing, cleaning out and donating.  It's such a good feeling to clean out and donate to others.  In the first week of the new year, we went to Ikea to purchase an Expedit for the playroom.  Here is what it looked like before we started...

Not horrible, but definitely in need of some TLC.  Because of where the cable was installed, the television has been crammed in the corner for about 5 years.  It's at 3 year-old eye level... you should have seen all the finger prints!  We found some paintable trim at Lowe's that attaches to the baseboard to conceal cords.  It will be nice to be able to open both doors.  The small closet maid to the left was the only thing we had for easy storage and much of what you see here, the kids don't play with anymore.  Time to clean out!

We cleared enough space to lay out all the parts to start our build...

Here's hubby putting together this monstrosity!  

Almost finished...

I love how it adds height to the room and the television has its own little space.  I'll show more pictures of the room as we get it together, but had to show you what a difference this made!  

Where have you used an Expedit?  We plan to use another one in the craft room!  

I'm linking up to:

Show Us Your House at Thrifty Decor Chick

My New Craft Table

Hi!  I didn't realize it had been almost three weeks since my last post.
We've been busy with lots of exciting projects.  Speaking of which... I'm happy to start the organization process of my craft room/home office.  Back in October, we took our two HUGE desks to Furniture Buy Consignment, a local high end used furniture store.  In less than two months, both of them sold! 

The hubs and I made a deal that we (okay, I) would use the money from the furniture to re-do the room.   

I ordered this desk today from Home Decorators Collection.  It's the Martha Stewart Living Craft Space Table.  They were offering free shipping (through 1/23/12) and $10 off your order of $100 or more, so it was great timing!  Due to my bad back, I decided to get the 36"x54" size (countertop height).  For certain projects, I like to stand because it's better on my back.  After reading the reviews, many customers ordered the taller one for the same reasons! 

It's perfect!  I wanted a substantial table, but with an airy and light feel, if that makes sense.
Now I'm on the look out for a pair of barstools, one for me and a crafting buddy!  :)

My inspiration for this room comes from several of my favorite bloggers.
One in particular is Megan from Honey We're Home.  I adore her office and shortly after I found her,
I purchased the fabric she used for her office drapes.  

Waverly Bedazzle Silver Lining

I've had the fabric for almost a year and needless to say, I can't wait to sew them and watch the room come to life!  The two colors I'm considering for the room are:

Behr's Ashes or

Sherwin Williams Friendly Yellow

I'm leaning more towards the yellow because we have a lot of gray tones throughout our home.  

I'll be clearing the room and preparing to paint with one of those colors in the next week or so.

After that, we are heading to Ikea to purchase one of these...

Expedit

So, if I'm MIA for awhile, you'll know what I'm doing!

In the mean time, I plan to post some small projects I've completed!

Have a good week!

Repurposed Cabinets

So I've shared with you on a few occasions that I like to do a lot of repurposing in my home.  I've been brainstorming for quite some time now about what to do with the cabinets my husband installed in our home office a few years ago.  I've seen so many fabulous office redos in my years of blogging, but when I stumbled upon this one, I was awe struck!  If you follow me on Pinterest, you may have seen my pins on Megan's beautiful space...

I ADORE her office!  When I noticed how similar our spaces appeared, I just knew mine needed a transformation.  My obstacle, however, was the dark and heavy cabinets!  I didn't want to paint them (I have too many things on my "need to paint" list) , so they had to go!

Too much dark wood going on here... ya think?

I started thinking about the unorganized clutter in our MBR closet and knew moving them up there would help to resolve the problem.  Once I measured and learned they would fit, I presented the idea to hubby and he happily approved!  I wish I had a before picture, but as you can see I was quite anxious to get started!  

To avoid space on the ends, we decided to dismantle and rebuild one of the cabinets in the center, leaving us with three instead of the original four.  We're so pleased with the turnout; I'm glad we were able to reuse them.

Here is where they were:

And now in their new home!

As for the door from the fourth cabinet... I managed to snatch it from the pile in the garage and repurpose it too!  I knew exactly what I wanted to do!

Kate at Centsational Girl shows a tutorial on repurposing cabinet doors.  

She turned hers into memo boards for her home office.

Before:

And her after:

I plan to use my repurposed door in the closet to hang belts, scarves and hats.  I've already covered it with some pretty damask fabric and I'll be adding hooks to the top and bottom this weekend.

What have you repurposed lately?

I'm linking up to:

Show Us Your House... Closets @ Thrifty Decor Chick

Pantry Project

Hi everyone!
Now that school is back in full swing, I've been tackling some projects around the house and have slowly been checking some off my list.  The project I've been working on lately is my pantry.  I've seen so many of you transform your pantries into beautiful organized spaces.  One in particular has caught my eye.  I recently discovered Danielle at Amber Lane Living and fell in love with her pantry redo.  She used mod podge to adhere fabric to contact paper to achieve an adorable look on her pantry walls.

There are so many beautiful fabrics out there, that it has been hard for me to decide. So, the first thing I decided to do was gather my containers and start turning my cardboard mess of a pantry into something sleek and attractive!  I shopped at Target, Container Store, Ikea, TJ Maxx/Home Goods, BB&B and even Goodwill.  I couldn't wait to get them all home and transform my pantry.

Here is how it looked before... 

and after!

My dear friend, Susan has a Silhouette to make vinyl letters.  We picked out the cutest font called Jenna Sue on www.dafont.com and added labels to all the containers.  I just love how they turned out!

The next step is to add some trim to the shelfs and sides to give it a cleaner look.  The hubs and I have plans to do this next weekend.  Until then, I'll be working on selecting the fabric so that I can adhere to contact paper and apply to the walls.  I've narrowed down the fabric choice to my top four favorites:

Amy Butler's Midwest Modern 2

Pink Dahlia - Fresh Poppies - Linen

 Amy Butler's Daisy Chain

 Silver - Sweet Jasmine - Grey

 Joel Dewberry's Aviary 2

Bloom Granite

Amy Butler's August Fields

Dew Drops - Modern Love - Grey

I adore the first one simply because it was one of the reasons I fell in love with Danielle's pantry. However, the other three have a beautiful color palette too.  I'm leaning towards Joel Dewberry's Bloom Granite because I love the grays and yellows and it will tie in nicely with the rest of my kitchen.  What do you think?

I'll be back soon to show you the fabric choice and finished pantry.  Have a great week!

I'm linking up to:
Show Us Your House.. Closets @ Thrifty Decor Chick

Bowl Full of Lemons